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An Introduction to the Industrial Revolution

In Great Britain, during the middle of the 18th century, a change began in the way that products were produced and used. For the first time in history, production was added by more than just human power or animal power, with the manufacturing industry applying new power sources and technology to the way products were manufactured. Much later, in the 19th century, this change would come to be known as the industrial revolution, which would be responsible for perhaps the biggest change to human culture since the move from a nomadic existence to a settled society.

Using motors that were powered by water and fossil fuels, the production of many items, such as cloth, were made much easier, requiring fewer humans and ultimately costing much less. While the industrial revolution is started in Great Britain in 1760, within fifty years, it would spread throughout Europe and the United States, with other nations, like Russian and Japan soon joining the change to advanced manufacturing techniques.

Of course, this change was not observed, nor did it get its name right away, with the term industrial revolution generally being credited to a philosopher named John Stuart in 1848. The phrase industrial revolution, however, would not become common place until about forty years later, when it was used in a series of lectures created by Arnold Toynbee.

The Importance of the Steam Engine

The most important invention to fuel the rapid explosion of the manufacturing and specifically the textile industry was the Steam Engine, which relied upon burning coal to turn water into steam. Up until this point, most manufacturing was preformed using human power or animal power, although water wheels had some use, mainly in the milling and woodworking industry.

The steam engine allowed many repetitious tasks to be preformed, greatly reducing the amount of human labor required, with most of the human work being ensuring that the steam powered devices ran properly and, in the case of the textile industry, preventing thread from tangling or breaking.

A Move From Households to Factories

Prior to the introduction of the steam engine, most manufacturing took place in homes and was not very centralized. This changed, however, with factories rapidly replacing the home manufacturing facility. This, in turn, motivated those involved with the manufacturing to become much more specialized, both in the roles of humans in the manufacturing process, but also with the development of a layer a overseers or manufacturers, which were responsible for ensuring the workers were properly organized.

The Result of the Industrial Revolution

While the industrial revolution continues today, with nuclear power being one of the most recent changes to technology, the initial result was that there was an incredibly rapid increase in the rate at which goods were produced. For example, within fifty years of the start of the industrial revolution, thread was produced more than a hundred times faster than before.

When you hear the term revolution, it is easy to conjure up images of fighting a tyrannical government or a revolt by the people, but in this case, revolution simply is meant to describe the dramatic change that improved production techniques had. This change was not only related to the specific industries, such as textile manufacturing, that made use of this new technology, but because less time had to be spent on basic production of goods, other industries also grew.

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